jentle men, president obama tonight said he had spoken with speaker boehner in addition to senate majority leader harry reed. >> i just spoke to speaker boehner and i also met with senator reed. in the next few days, i've asked leaders of congress to work towards a package that prevents a tax hike on middle class americans, protects unemployment insurance for two million americans and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction. >> jared, is this actually a setback for the president in so far as the embarrassed speaker with someone at least with whom he was dealing? and now, the president really doesn't have a negotiation partner? >> i do think it's a setback from the nation because the president and speaker boehner were actually moving to a credible, plausible compromise at the very beginning of the week. of course, that's horribly off track now when john boehner decided to go to plan b. i think the president's lever raj, if anything, is enhanced by this. the problem is that i don't know why republicans would nibble at this idea of essentially passing the sen